Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme: Glory Days #2

Issue 2 came out in December 1994. The story was by Rob Liefeld, Robert Napton and Karl Altstaetter. Scripted, edited and lettered by Kurt Hathaway. Pencils by David Williams and inked by Gary Martin.

We start off with The Baron, reborn. But since they only have access to certain parts of the Bloodstrike reborn project, he's a twisted, old man. It's believed that if they can combine his DNA with that of a Supreme being, he'll be much more powerful. The Baron knows exactly who he wants... Glory! Wait, not Supreme? Wasn't expecting that. 

Back in Glory's apartment, she's trying to clean up after smashing Supreme through her ceiling last issue. 

 

She opens her front door and Nazi robots come pouring in trying to capture her. 

While she's not paying attention, a Nazi guy shocks her unconscious, and they take her away. 

Supreme, meanwhile, is sitting atop Mount Rushmore, fuming that Glory turned his romantic proposal down. 

Superpatriot and Die Hard show up and tell him that Glory is missing. She has a tracker that shows her somewhere deep in the Pacific. So the Allies team up with Roman to look for Glory. 

On a Nazi sub, The Baron is sucking the life force out of Glory and giving it to himself. 

The Allies burst into the Nazi sub and start fighting with the Nazis. Supreme quickly attacks The Baron, who also quickly escapes. Wow, all that set up for almost no tension or action.

 

He's got the sub rigged to blow up but fortunately not in any hurry, so the Allies leisurely get Glory aboard their own sub. 

Supreme goes to look for The Baron, but no luck. And Glory is back to her old self after about an hour. Phew. 

Die Hard tries to get Supreme to commit to working with the Allies again and Supreme says "Maybe."

The end.

It took three people to come up with this story? Oof. Well, at least it was pretty to look at. It's weird because it has al the elements of a fun series, WWII era action, Nazi villains, robots and submarines and they had no idea how to utilize any of it for a good story. 

Also, it didn't really tell us anything we didn't already know about Supreme in the WWII era, and it didn't really do much to set up a romance between Supreme and Glory, as he's terrible and she has the personality of a wafer. So... what exactly was this series supposed to do?

Oh well. At least it was short. 

What did you think? 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme: Glory Days #1

 

Okay, let's pause from reading the regular issues for the Supreme: Glory Days miniseries. It was only two issues and looked at Supreme's WWII-era activities.

Issue 1 came out in October 1994. The story was by Rob Liefeld. Written, edited and lettered by Kurt Hathaway. Pencils by David Williams and inked by Gary Martin. Maybe this is the Volume I that they were talking about?

We start the series in the waning days of World War II, as Hitler has just committed suicide. We then see Supreme as part of the Allied fighting forces. It's basically an excuse for Williams to draw Supreme fighting Nazi images, and to be fair, they look great.

An allied soldier asks Supreme to go check out a mysterious bunker, which Supreme happily does. It's weird. This doesn't feel like the Supreme we know from the main series. No moody, surly, Supreme this guy. This is much more of a Captain America, gung-ho mentality about him.

At the bunker, Supreme finds The Baron, a Nazi mad scientist, who has made a giant fighting robot called Die Maschine, which Supreme takes out with one punch. 

We cut to the White House where Supreme is telling President Truman, Glory and Die Hard that he is planning on leaving the planet because he believes he has a higher calling. 

Glory tries to stop him, but he says that he would ask her to go with him, but he thinks he would know what the answer would be.  I guess this is as close to the Supreme we know, doing what he wants and not really caring what anyone else wants. 

We then cut to decades later when Supreme has returned from outer space. In Manhattan, we see Glory on the phone, turning down an endorsement deal for makeup since she doesn't have to wear any.  That's when Supreme shows up and calls on his "Honey." Glory's not having that and decks him.

Meanwhile, In German, some neo-Nazis are searching for the body of The Baron. 

 

Supreme and Glory talk some. Glory wants to know if Supreme is back for good, but he can't promise that he is. So she flies off. 

Meanwhile, the remains of The Baron are brought to Project Born Again to be... you guessed it... born again.

It's a pretty enough book but not a lot happens. We'll have to find out if anything of substance happens in part 2. 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #20

 

 

Supreme issue 20 came out in October 1994. Written, edited and lettered by Kurt Hathaway. Layouts by Marat Mychaels. Penciled by Cedric Nocon and inked by Norm Rapmund, Lary Stucker, Jonathan Sibal and Robert Lacko. Additional art by Vince Russell. Apparently Nocon was well regarded by the fans, who asked for him to stay on as the regular artist. 

We pick up the story with Kid Supreme, in his red and white costume that he got who knows where, flying to Twist's, the mafia boss, office which had been destroyed in the fight between Supreme and Overtkill. 

 

He overhears Twit mention the boat Lucky Lady, Hudson River and 7:30. Gosh, I wonder if those will become important later?

Kid Supreme wants to know about the death of Patch and Twist says that Supreme already asked him that. Which is when Kid Supreme notices the ongoing fight between Supreme and Overtkill on the streets below. 

So, this being the book it is, Kid Supreme jumps into the fight. At which point, Supreme basically yells at him to get lost. 

Ah, ever the gentleman, that Supreme. In the fray, Overtkill gets away. Supreme and Kid Supreme yell at each other a bit until Kid mentions what he overheard and Supreme flies off. 

Later that night, Twist and Overtkill turn up at Pug's boat and we learn that Pug is secretly going to blow it up to kill Twist. Meanwhile, Kid Supreme steals a tux and pretends to be working at the party on the boat. He overhears a deal going down where Twist is buying high tech weapons from Pug. Kid Supreme gets notices, chucks a guard in the water as Supreme flies up and it all quickly goes to hell. 

Supreme and Kid Supreme fight Overtkill. Pug says they're going to blow the boat, which Twist overhears and yells to everyone, causing a stampede to jump over the side. Twist and Overtkill get away while Supreme and Kid Supreme get caught in the boat explosion. But they're fine, except Kid Supreme's costume, which since he miraculously got it free between issues last time, I'm sure he can get another.

They capture Pug, who agrees to testify against Twist. If he ever gets caught. Which he won't. But the writer doesn't care, so neither should we. 

 

The issue ends with a weird two page epilogue of Glory bumping into Odin walking a dog, which turns out to be Loki. 

They're looking for Supreme because they want Thor's hammer back. Which makes sense. He's had the hammer for a lot longer than I thought he would and is he ever going to get his powers back? 

Guess we'll find out in the next 20 issues, because we are officially halfway through the pre-Moore Supremes! How we've made it through 20 pages and learned so little about Supreme and found so little that is worthwhile is a true accomplishment. That'll do, Image. That'll do.